Good thing Adam Carolla has such a big mouth — because he seems determined to stuff both of his feet into it these days.
The former "Man Show" host is taking flak across the internet this week for opining that women are inherently less funny than men — and Tuesday on "The Talk" he raised a few more hackles by suggesting that jokes about homosexuals are OK because they get a laugh.
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Carolla drew charges of sexism earlier this week in an interview with the New York Post when he told a reporter that women have inferior senses of humor.
Asked if he hated working with women, Carolla — who's promoting a new book, "Not Taco Bell Material" — replied, "No. But they make you hire a certain number of chicks, and they’re always the least funny on the writing staff. The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks. If my daughter has a mediocre sense of humor, I’m just gonna tell her, 'Be a staff writer for a sitcom. Because they’ll have to hire you, they can’t really fire you, and you don’t have to produce that much. It’ll be awesome.'"
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Given a chance to backpedal, Carolla held his ground.
"I don’t care," he asserted. "When you’re picking a basketball team, you’ll take the brother over the guy with the yarmulke. Why? Because you’re playing the odds. When it comes to comedy, of course there’s Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Kathy Griffin — super-funny chicks. But if you’re playing the odds? No."
Carolla offered his own example of what he thinks is humorous during an appearance on "The Talk" on Tuesday — namely, Chaz Bono jokes.
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Bringing up the fact that Carolla had made seemingly anti-gay remarks in the past but had also spoken out against homophobia, co-host Sara Gilbert asked, "Just to set the record straight, how do you feel about us gay people?"
"Listen, I wish more people were gay," Carolla began. "If you've driven over to the gay section of Los Angeles, it's like a golf course."
However, since pointing out people's positive attributes doesn't draw the guffaws, the comedian admitted that going cruel is preferred, referring to transgendered "Dancing With the Stars" contestant Chaz Bono as an example.
"If someone says to me what you think of your mother-in-law and I go, 'Oh, she's a delight, I love her dearly,' nobody laughs," Carolla admitted. "So if somebody says, 'What do you think about Chaz Bono,' I have to say something that's horrible, so I can get a laugh. And then everyone goes, 'Oh, that's what you think?' I'm on stage! Nice doesn't get laughs, especially on stage, that's what I'm saying."
Carolla followed up by invoking the "I'm just a comedian" defense.
"When did we start holding comedians up to the level of politicians and school teachers?" Carolla said. "We're comedians. We're supposed to say these things."
For someone so concerned about drawing laughs, Carolla probably isn't drawing many with his latest comments — unless they're laughs of derision.